


Defiled

by Secondprinces



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Not necessarily chrobin, but ya'll know that's where my mind was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 12:17:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11402262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secondprinces/pseuds/Secondprinces
Summary: A newborn wailed; Validar rose, pushing his way into the tent just as the midwife started wrapping it in an old cloak.“Give me that—“ Validar snarled, snatching the baby away.“Mind his head—“ the midwife said.“Don’t you think I know how to handle my own flesh and blood?”  Validar unraveled the cloak from the child, eyes raking over his pink body for the mark.  His lips pulled into a sneer.  “It bears the brand of the defiled.”In the corner, soaked in sweat and heaving, the mother sagged in relief.  Her baby would live.





	Defiled

**Author's Note:**

> I obviously took a HELL Of a lot of liberties with this. and did change some things up here and there. My take on Robin's mother, if she had not been able to smuggle him out as a baby.

Night peeled back the last rays of the sun, and with the darkness rolled in howling wind.  The air was dry, hot—crackling with restless energy that struck out as lightning.  If a storm threatened, it’d be a violent one.

The Grimleal settled into burlap tents, peppered across the tabletop rock looming over miles of scrubland in Plegia.  The fires had dwindled.  Silence hung.

They waited.

All was dark, save for one tent illuminated within by the flames from a tome.

A man in his thirties, Validar was aged only by the deep furrow across his brow and the grey seeping into his skin.  In the tradition of the Grimleal, he was heavily pierced, adorned with spiked golden jewelry and cloaked in rich purples and blues despite the heat.  Narrowed eyes surveyed the stillness with the predatory nature of a demon, but his focus was on the tent behind him.  With each cry from within, his gaze flickered back to the entry.

A newborn wailed; Validar rose, pushing his way into the tent just as the midwife started wrapping it in an old cloak.

“Give me that—“ Validar snarled, snatching the baby away.

“Mind his head—“ the midwife said.

“Don’t you think I know how to handle my own flesh and blood?”  Validar unraveled the cloak from the child, eyes raking over his pink body for the mark.  His lips pulled into a sneer.  “It bears the brand of the defiled.”

In the corner, soaked in sweat and heaving, the mother sagged in relief.  Her baby would live. 

Validar thrust him into her arms. 

“Raise it.  I want no sight nor sound of it until it’s old enough to be of use.”

He turned to leave, but leered back at the mother.  “Don’t bother with a name.  This child is Grima’s.”

The tent flaps fell closed.

Only then did Winifred draw up, one arm supporting the child’s head and the other tucking him back into the cloak.  Her fingertips skittered across his cheek and down his arm to the brand on the back of his hand.  A curved V that pierced three sets of eyes.  The mark of the defiled. 

Grima’s mark.

\--

A crop of white hair contrasted with olive skin and sharp eyes.  Even for a child, he was already startlingly intelligent—so much that Validar had taken an interest in him despite himself.

“Defiled,” he said, as casually as if that were a proper name.

The boy glanced up from where he’d been scrawling on some paper.  He’d been in his tent until his mother was summoned to help scrub clothes down by the creak.  Validar sometimes lurked while she was gone.  Defiled blinked at him. 

He really didn’t say a lot unless spoken too.

Validar thumbed open the book he usually carried and studied it before speaking.  “Say our enemy was comprised of one half Pegasus knights and one half armored knights on horseback.  How would we crush them.”  
  
Defiled climbed to his feet, a thoughtful expression in solemn eyes.  “What is the terrain like?”  
  
Validar gestured toward the flap of the tent.  “We’re protecting our own terrain.  With our own soldiers.  The damn Ylissians think their attack a surprise, but our scouts have alerted us.”

By the stamp of feet and the restless silence, Defiled knew the soldiers outside must be preparing.  He spoke calmly.  “Draw them into where the boulders are piled in the ravine.  Have mages move the earth and shatter them with the crumble of rocks while archers stand on higher ground and pick off the fliers who evade the avalanche.”

Validar smirked and knelt to pat Defiled’s cheek, long nails grazing his skin.  “Good boy.  You’ll have your use until it’s time to forfeit your body, won’t you.”  He rose and rushed out to speak to his captains.

Defiled resumed coloring, not glancing up even when his mother rushed in and crushed him to her chest.  She stared after Validar’s retreating figure.

\--

The camp moved frequently, soldiers picking up in sullen silence and loading tents onto horses and wagons.  Defiled was under the impression that they were just behind the frontlines, as much of that as he understood from long sessions with Validar.

They studied for hours, pouring over tomes, moving little markers across a map.  Defiled thought of this as a game of chess.  Stay one step in front of Validar and he’d perhaps earn praise.

They sat on some rocks in the mountain pass, where sandstone swallowed up parts of the desert and sheltered the Grimleal from scathing winds.  Every step dumped sand into Defiled’s shoes.  The sun seared even through the shadowed places.

“Ylisse is foul,” Validar finally said, as Defiled moved the black stone across the map toward the ravine.  That designated the mages pouring into battle.  Validar sat forward and massaged at his temples, brow furrowed and lips pressed into a thin line.  “Foul heathens to be crushed under foot.”

Defiled didn’t speak.

“They rush into our nation with their godless armies.  May Grima crush them all.”  He scoffed, eyes locking onto Defiled.  “And he will.”  With that, he relaxed a little.

Defiled shivered but didn’t break eye contact.  It was an honor to be the heart of Grima.  He didn’t understand the extent of the sacrifice but that much he knew.

A bird song caught his ear, and he glanced upward once Validar distracted himself with his map again.  The sky was as endless of an expanse as the desert stretching beneath it.  Even choked with sand, it lay a vibrant blue.

Defiled held a hand up over his eyes to scan for the bird.

\--

The nights after a skirmish, the fires blazed high with the oily stench of corpses.  Smoke seeped through the valley.  Winifred tugged Defiled away from the lick of flames.

“My sweet boy, don’t stray off.”

Defiled allowed her to drag him to the outskirts of camp.  The pair were sheltered by the pace of activity:  mages rushing back and forth with the wounded or dead while healers skittered from tent to tent.  He watched all this with casual interest. 

War was not unfamiliar to him.

Winifred clicked her tongue.  “Sweet boy…walk quickly.”

“Where are we going, Mother?”

“Just follow me.  And keep quiet…”  Winifred glanced back over her shoulder.  The chaos should cover their tracks.  She tugged with just a little more urgency.

Defiled stumbled along after her.

There came an odd sweep of exclamation through the camp, as they inched toward the scrubland dipping between the craggy rocks.  Winifred froze as hooves rang past.

“The Exalt is dead.  The Ylisseans will surely fall—“

It echoed a whisper through the camp.

Winifred tugged her son into the folds of her cloak and waited, back against the rock as several Grimleal rushed past.  Looking for Validar.

What did that mean for Plegia, Winifred wondered.

She shook her head, biting her lip.  Never mind that.  If anything, this was the chance she’d been waiting for the last few years.  It was now or never--

Winifred tensed.  She could feel her son’s reluctance in his stance, his fear in the way he shook.  As she led him down the pass, she whispered soothingly.  “It’s okay, sweet son.  We’re going to make our own way from here on out.”

“Father has scouts everywhere.  He’ll surely catch us.”

Winifred frowned.  “You really think yourself that much safer in his grasp than trying to flee?  At least this way you have a sliver of a chance, child.”

Defiled stared up at her.

“Sometimes you have to risk everything.  But it’s okay.  It’s you and me together.”

The boy nodded. 

“Quickly, quickly,” she whispered back, as she continued on.

\--

As night sank into dreary morning, the hiss of wind and the shifting of sand stopped echoing fears of pursuit.  Only then did Winifred finally sink into a little alcove, tugging Defiled in with her and wrapping her arms around him. 

“Rest,” she murmured, smoothing his hair down.  She scrubbed at some of the dirt on his face with her sleeve.

Defiled scowled but rested his head against her side. 

“We’ll make it,” Winifred whispered.  “The camp is in so much of an uproar that they won’t notice that we’re gone.  And this wind and perhaps oncoming storm will cover our tracks.”

Humming, Defiled drew his knees up to his chest.  His legs felt non-existent from a night of walking, but his feet throbbed.  He soaked in the silence.  Sighed.  And glanced up at his mother, who was still staring into the pass as if standing guard.  Forever vigilant.

“Mother?”

Winifred blinked down at him.  “Yes?”

“Why am I so important.”

Winifred licked her lips and sighed.  “You’d be important no matter what, dear.”

That furrow in Defiled’s brow returned. “No.  You know what I mean.”  He tugged his sleeve back to stare at the Mark.  “Why do I bear this mark.  Why _me_.  What does it mean.”

Winifred choked back an odd sound, took a moment to collect herself, then resumed stroking Defiled’s head.  “You know, every mother spends hours thinking up a name for her child…”

Defiled frowned.  “I have a name.”

Winifred did not contest this.  She held Defiled that much closer.  “Child, every breath you draw, I am reminded that I am glad you exist.  That you walk beside me.  Never think that I wish you out of existence.  But your father, he, well, he wished you into existence for no reason but to make a vessel out of you.”

“He told me.  He told me I am to become Grima’s.”

Winifred tensed.  “You’ll die.”

“He said I’d live eternally.”

“No, son, you’ll _die_ and with you will come the deaths of an entire nation.  I used to curse Ylisse for the hardships and the poverty thrust upon us.  For the deaths of our people at their hands can never be wiped clean, even with a new leader.  But to wipe out their children and nation to exact revenge tenfold just sinks us to that level.  And at what cost.  We won’t thrive because of it.  Life will be just as hard and I’ll have lost my only son—“

Defiled felt the heat of tears seep into his collar, and reached up to wrap around his mother.

Winifred clutched him even tighter.  “This isn’t your purpose in life.  Your blood and that mark say one thing, but you’re _smart_ son.  You need to live so that your intelligence and your compassion lift this nation back on its feet.  I believe that’s the way it needs to be done.”  Finally, she released him, but only to hold his face in her hands and look him in the eyes.  “I need you to promise me that you’ll stay away from Validar and Grima.  Even if we’re caught tonight, you must never stop running from them.  Away from this twisted fate.”  
  
Defiled nodded, struck mute by the intensity in her expression. 

Winifred’s eyes softened.  She shrugged out of her coat, a rich blue marked with purple and embellished with gold trim.  Eyes much like the eyes of the Brand snaked down the sleeves.  She tucked it around Defiled’s shoulders and held him close again, drawing him to lean his head against her shoulder.

“It will be okay,” Winifred murmured.  “We’ll start a new life.  We’ll have a farm somewhere, tend sheep maybe.  Just you and me while you grow up big and strong.  Yeah?”

“Yes, mother,” Defiled said.  He couldn’t shake the unease seeping in as the wind picked up.

Winifred glanced up at the sky.  It had become steely.  Electric with restless energy in boiling clouds.  The storm would come.  She sighed, settling them deeper into their cove, rubbing Defiled’s arm but so painfully aware that he was too tense to sleep.

She spoke to him in a singsong whisper.  “Look what I see, child.”

“Hm?”

Winifred pointed.  In a hollowed space, where two rocks met unevenly near the ground, a bird had made its nest, a neat cupped structure.  The mother was gone, but had left three sky-blue eggs in safety until her return.

“Eggs?”

“From a Red-capped Robin, I’d bet,” Winifred said.  “You remember when I taught you your birds and the animal life, right?”  In her soft voice, she told him all she knew of these birds, and birds like it.

Defiled nodded and hummed, and eventually was lulled to sleep.

\--

Defiled woke to terror and the stamping of feet and his mother’s shrill scream.  Half asleep, he was wrenched upward by the arm and thrown back.

His head slammed into rock.

Slowly, he hefted himself upright, but a wave of dizziness dragged him back down. 

His mother’s screams echoed distant, the shouts of men even louder.  The earth spun with the turmoil of men flooding into the tiny cavern.  A throbbing ate away at his consciousness.

Through the black spots crowding his vision, all he could focus on were the tattered remains of the nest and three shattered eggs.

\--  
He remembered little of that night, save for those crushed eggs and his mother’s screaming.

Validar kept her alive—whether as some sick joke or to see how defeat crushed her spirit.  He allowed Defiled limited interaction with her.  Perhaps he would not run if he knew it was leaving his mother behind.

As he grew older, he said less and less.  Rather than stare at the expanse of blue sky, he found his eyes cast down into the cracked earth, scraped raw by the same sand that ate away at the canyons.  
  
Validar allowed him to exist like this.  Upon the Exalt’s death, Ylisse pulled its troops out and both sides sulked off to lick their wounds.

And what terrible wounds they were.

If food was scarce in war, it was nonexistent now. Defiled felt hungry more often than not, though the Grimleal had settled into the canyons riddling the plateau and hunted as far as the sea.

“She still begs you to run, you know.”

Defiled didn’t look up.  He’d tucked himself in his mother’s cloak, though the rising sun already seethed across the shore.

He’d strayed so far that his toes dug into the sand and caked up his calves.  The ocean slathered itself up the beach, languid but frothy.  Humidity and the tang of salt rolled in with it.

Aversa fell into pace with him along the dunes, scuffing at the sand with bare feet.  She made a show of yawning and watched him coolly.  “Why don’t you run, hm?  Can’t stay away?”  She scoffed.  “Piteous thing you are.  Can’t even honor your mother’s last wish. 

Defiled stared back. “Why are you talking to me.”

“So he _can_ speak!”  Aversa made a great show of surprise, but the emotion didn’t quite reach her eyes.  She turned away, inspecting her nails as her smirk sank back into something pensive.  “I guess I just needed to see exactly what this supposed Grima vessel was supposed to be like.  Forgive me for not kneeling down to worship.  Trick knee, you know.”  She hummed.  “Perhaps when it’s finally Grima under that cute face I’ll make an attempt.”

Defiled flinched.

Aversa, pleased her words hit him, turned to face him again.  She spoke so nonchalantly.  “Your mother is dying.”

“What.”

Aversa tilted her head.  “You heard me.  Your mother is sick and she is dying.  I figured you’d ought to know.”

“You’re lying to me,” Defiled said.

Aversa scoffed.  “And why would I do that?  If anything, her sickness is what your father would want concealed from you.  But I suppose I’m a little bit displeased that I’m being shipped off to go step on Gangrel’s dick for Validar these days.  So maybe I let a little something slip.  Go see for yourself.”  She preened then flounced off, not even looking back as Defiled slipped in the sand to dart back up the beach.

He reached her tent, gasping for air and shaking sand out of every pore.  There were guards, as usual, but Validar did not seem to be nearby. With Gangrel’s rise to power, they had a lot more on their minds than watching an aging prisoner.  Defiled slipped in.

“Mother—“

Winifred looked up, and that same pain flashed in her eyes.  She did look sick, her skin paper-thin and greyed, hair plastered to her forehead.  Her eyes were dull and yellowed.  “I told you to run.  You disobey your mother…?”

Defiled closed the gap and clasped her hands in his.  She felt too warm.  “Are you truly sick.”

“Yes, child.”  Her breath wheezed out.

“Tell me what to do.  There has to be medicine…”

Winifred shook her head.  She placed a trembling hand on Robin’s cheek.  “If my death is what releases you, then I die gratefully.  Every day you stay here is a day closer to your death.”

Defiled frowned.  “You’re all I’ve ever known.  I don’t want to leave you like this.  You deserve better.”

“We all do,” Winifred murmured.  “Now go.  If you leave now, you’ll surely have a few days before he realizes you’ve gone.”

Defiled hesitated, took a step toward the tent flap, but stopped in his tracks.  “I’ll take you with me.”

Winifred shook her head. “Then he’ll surely notice your absence and I’ll slow you down.  _Go._ ”

Defiled swallowed, hard, gritted his teeth, and nodded, turning again.

He nearly walked into Validar, shoving his way back into the tent.  Defiled froze, half patting at his side for his tomb or a dagger or _anything_.

Validar remained calm.  His voice was deadly quiet.  “You’ll need to procure Elgroot if you wish to save her.  Surely there’s a village somewhere.  You probably have about a week.”  He smiled, teeth bared and lips pressed thin.  There was malice in narrowed eyes.  “Go, boy.  Go save your mother.  And know that I will be able to find you no matter where your little feet take you.  You are the vessel to Grima.  Fate drags its victims back.”  He turned with a swish of his robes and left.

“Son, use this time to run.  Run to Ylisse and never return—“ Winifred begged.

Defiled expression was unreadable.  He left without another word, packed up a few of his things, and strolled out of camp.  “Elgroot,” he said to himself, as he picked his way down the cavern toward the nearest village.

\--

Defiled walked for days underneath a hazy sky.  The sand had worn through his shoes long ago, but callouses had made him numb to the scrape of earth or the shifting terrain.  He procured the Elgroot from a little village in a dip of land that somehow cultivated patches of grass.  A spring welled up here, and so Defiled sat a moment, precious cargo clutched to his lap as he let the water run over chapped and bruised heels.

He still had 4 days to find his way home, and considering the walk had taken him only 3 days, he knew he’d make it.

“I owe her this much,” he said to no one in particular.  She dreamed of a life in a village, raising sheep on a hill with her son.  She deserved to see it, rather than being abandoned to die under Validar’s cruelty.  Those were the conditions on which Defiled would leave.

But for the moment, every joint ached from weariness.  He closed his eyes and yawned, but forced them open again.  “No time to sleep,” he said.  His own voice was a quiet reassurance.  He shoved himself to his feet again.  Wavered. Then pushed himself back up the hill.

The grass was cool and soft on his feet.  When he breathed in, he took in lungfuls of crisp mountain air so unlike the brusque desert or the humid seascape.

“Am I even in Plegia anymore,” he wondered, shifting his pack on his shoulder and drawing his cloak tighter around his shoulders.  “Come to think of it, those people were pretty pale.”

The village was little more than a toyscape down the hillside now.  Flowers sputtered along the rolling hills at his back, but Defiled knew he must return to craggy rock and insufferable heat.  He picked his way through the first and last field he’d probably ever see.  The sun was warm and bright; sheep bleated somewhere just beyond his periphery. 

Defiled allowed himself one last deep breath to soak it all in, eyes falling shut.

When he opened them, clouds blotted out the sun and in the false night smothering in came a chill.  Hundreds of thousands of stars shot down from the heavens, tails trailing bright before cutting out of existence.

Defiled stared upward, rooted into place.  One particular star, shooting straight down, seared impossibly bright.

Toward him.

It burned into his retinas until it consumed his vision. 

He hit the ground in a body not his own—the light of the star seething into every nerve as if trying to hijack his limbs.  Defiled screamed.  Pain ate through him.  A seizure tossed him like a rag doll, and his eyes rolled back into his head.  His mouth frothed.  Sweat gripped him in waves of heat then cold then heat again.  His cries broke away into nothing like sheered violin strings.

 _I am the Fell Dragon Grima_.

Defiled gnashed his teeth and turned his head side to side.  He writhed in total darkness.  His breaths were ragged gasps that scraped him raw.

Defiled opened his eyes to a world not his own.  He was standing, hands gripping a yellow tome.  The air was thick with the crackle of magic and the stench of blood.

Dark magic pooled on the mark on the ceiling and blasted down.  A man with blue hair whirled around to dodge it, his sword gleaming as it hissed through the air.  As soon as his foot hit the ground, he twisted around and charged his enemy.

 _Validar_.

“Chrom—“ Defiled felt himself scream.

_Not strong enough not strong enough—_

Validar charged another blast, this time unavoidable as Chrom barreled forward.  Hands moving of their own accord, Robin countered it with a blast from Thoron, his tome cutting through the strike like it was nothing.  Chrom skidded to a halt but shot him a thankful little smile, then turned and readied himself again.

_Your heart is weak.  Your heart isn’t ready—_

Validar charged another attack.  The miasma of purple magic swirled around him and seethed up toward the ceiling—

This time Defiled channeled all his power to a direct blast.  He felt it leave his body in a crackling torrent.  Watched Validar swivel to stare.  Narrow his eyes.  Then fall forward.

Two things happened at once—Chrom rushed toward him as Validar lurched forward on his hands and knees, setting off one last blast toward the pair with a bloodcurling scream.  Defiled’s breath caught.  He shoved Chrom backwards.  The blast flung him into a wall.

“He’s done for—“ Defiled heard, somewhere past the haze clouding his eyes.  A stabbing pain throbbed in his skull.  Red clouded his vision.  He felt Chrom prop him up, touch his face, peer into his eyes—a sheer sense of helpless relief that Defiled—or whoever he was supposed to be—was alright.

“—You can rest easy now—“

Defiled stared down at his hand.  It crackled with energy drawn from his tome.  He felt himself jerk forward.  Felt himself impale Chrom with a shard of lightning.  Felt like a prisoner in his own body.

“This is not your fault…”

Shrill laughter permeated all of Defiled’s senses.

_I’ll take you soon enough._

Then, as Chrom staggered backward, hand over a gaping wound, Defiled was ripped from the memory and he knew nothing.

\--

“What should we do…”

Defiled felt the ground pressing into his back.  Heard the shift of feet and the caress of the wind.  He grunted and let his eyes fall open.  Two faces came into focus as he blinked past the last dregs of unconsciousness.

A man and a woman.  The woman was young, blond with pigtails.  The man was—

Defiled grimaced.  He was—

The memory fell through his fingers like water through sand and he was left taking deep breaths, alarmed with no explanation.

“So you’re awake,” the man said.  He bore a strange mark on his shoulder, one that looked like a sheltered flame.  “There are better places to take a nap than on the ground you know…”  He reached a hand out.

Defiled took it, his own mark glinting with purple sheen in the sunlight.  He allowed this man to pull him to his feet.  He looked around.  Some sense of urgency told him that he needed to be somewhere.  Do something.  But he stared down at the golden cuffs of his sleeves and the mangled plant by his feet and could not recall.

“Where am I,” he asked.

“You are in Ylisse,” the man said, tilting his head.  “What is your name?”

Defiled opened his mouth as if to answer, but closed it again, hand finding his forehead.  “I…don’t know.”

The knight in full armor behind them scoffed.  “What a load of Pegasus dung, playing the amnesiac.” 

“Frederick—“  The man shot the knight a look and turned back to defiled.  “We’ll sort this out in town, yeah?”

He ignored Frederick’s grumbled complaints.

A name sprung unbidden to Defiled’s lips.  “Chrom.”

Chrom froze.  “How--?”

“For some reason I know it,” Defiled said.  “That’s odd.” 

“A little…”  Chrom said.  He approached him again.  “Hey, rest easy.  We’ll get it sorted.”  He placed a hand on Defiled’s shoulder.

Defiled’s brow furrowed as the warmth of that grip filled his heart with something unfamiliar, something that settled the unrelenting swirl of anxiety, guilt, and fear.  He met Chrom’s eyes, startled by a shade of blue that rivaled the endless expanse of sky behind him.

A warm breeze carried birdsong with it, saturated in sunlight and the crispness of mountains.  Defiled shook away a lingering image of shattered eggshells and took what felt like his first real breath in years.

“I just remembered my name,” Defiled said.  “It’s Robin.”

 


End file.
